A bifocal study to improve the management of engineering design by onevaluationof the design process and information sharing activity

The objective of this exploratory study is to foster innovation by gaining a better understanding of the determining characteristics of high-performance engineering design communities. Using a rich data set collected over multiple years, the researchers are working to validate a proposed design process model.This model is used to explain performance differences between design teams based on internal and external characteristics. It is expected that an analysis of the documentation and information sharing behavior of the members of a design community will show that the creation of learning opportunities by a design team is correlated with high performance. Managers of design teams can also encourage learning opportunities by allowing the free testing of ideas, as indicated by the proposed design process model.

Based on the findings, the researchers will investigate new methods to provide real-time insight into the distributed information spaces of globally located teams. The assessment of team communication signatures over heterogeneous communication channels will then be incorporated into a tool used to identify the performance-relevant characteristics of observed design teams. These signatures will be evaluated on their ability to predict design team performance. With these metrics and tools in place, the research project goal is to improve the design process through early detection and intervention.

This study is performed jointly by researchers at Stanford’s Center for Design Research (CDR) and the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI). The two research groups collaborate on the analysis of the data from different vantage points corresponding to their respective areas of expertise. This allows each group to substantiate its claims assisted by findings from the counterpart group, and illustrates how CDR and HPI both benefit from collaboration as a part of the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program.

Project Team (Stanford):
Larry Leifer, Philipp Skogstad, Karl Gumerlock
 
Project Team (HPI):
Alexander Zeier, Matthias Uflacker
 
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A bifocal study to improve the management of engineering design by onevaluationof the design process and information sharing activity

The objective of this exploratory study is to foster innovation by gaining a better understanding of the determining characteristics of high-performance engineering design communities. Using a rich data set collected over multiple years, the researchers are working to validate a proposed design process model.This model is used to explain performance differences between design teams based on internal and external characteristics. It is expected that an analysis of the documentation and information sharing behavior of the members of a design community will show that the creation of learning opportunities by a design team is correlated with high performance. Managers of design teams can also encourage learning opportunities by allowing the free testing of ideas, as indicated by the proposed design process model.

Based on the findings, the researchers will investigate new methods to provide real-time insight into the distributed information spaces of globally located teams. The assessment of team communication signatures over heterogeneous communication channels will then be incorporated into a tool used to identify the performance-relevant characteristics of observed design teams. These signatures will be evaluated on their ability to predict design team performance. With these metrics and tools in place, the research project goal is to improve the design process through early detection and intervention.

This study is performed jointly by researchers at Stanford’s Center for Design Research (CDR) and the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI). The two research groups collaborate on the analysis of the data from different vantage points corresponding to their respective areas of expertise. This allows each group to substantiate its claims assisted by findings from the counterpart group, and illustrates how CDR and HPI both benefit from collaboration as a part of the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program.

Project Team (Stanford):
Larry Leifer, Philipp Skogstad, Karl Gumerlock
 
Project Team (HPI):
Alexander Zeier, Matthias Uflacker
 
Watch the video on Tele-Task

A Neuroscientific and Psychometric Assessment

Employees’ ability to innovate critically determines corporate success, making it crucial to understand how innovation can be stimulated and what management can do to foster creativity. Recently, the concept of design thinking has been introduced to business research on product design. In our project proposal, we set out to investigate which aspects of design thinking are driving individuals’ creativity in product design processes. Using the neuroscientific method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), we propose four experiments that test the impact of factors including inspiration, usercentricity, prrototyping, and criticism on the activation of brain regions associated with creativity and motivation. Our project aims to produce four types of results: (1) improving our understanding of the human though processes involved in creative design innovation, (2) publishing and disseminating relevant findings in peer-reviewed scholarly journal outlets, (3) constructing a valid and reliable measure of creative design thinking suitable for self-administration, and (4) conducting workshops on the neural underpinnings of creative design thinking that address the impact of design thinking on technical, business, and human performance.

Project Team:
Brian Knutson, Martin Reimann, Oliver Schilke

Watch the video on Tele-Task

A Neuroscientific and Psychometric Assessment

Employees’ ability to innovate critically determines corporate success, making it crucial to understand how innovation can be stimulated and what management can do to foster creativity. Recently, the concept of design thinking has been introduced to business research on product design. In our project proposal, we set out to investigate which aspects of design thinking are driving individuals’ creativity in product design processes. Using the neuroscientific method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), we propose four experiments that test the impact of factors including inspiration, usercentricity, prrototyping, and criticism on the activation of brain regions associated with creativity and motivation. Our project aims to produce four types of results: (1) improving our understanding of the human though processes involved in creative design innovation, (2) publishing and disseminating relevant findings in peer-reviewed scholarly journal outlets, (3) constructing a valid and reliable measure of creative design thinking suitable for self-administration, and (4) conducting workshops on the neural underpinnings of creative design thinking that address the impact of design thinking on technical, business, and human performance.

Project Team:
Brian Knutson, Martin Reimann, Oliver Schilke

Watch the video on Tele-Task

in the development processes of the IT industry via Design Thinking

Traditionally IT development processes are technology-orientated and take place within the competency spheres of software and hardware engineers. The integration of the user perspective typically only takes place just before the actual development work (specification phase) and at the final development stages (elimination of software bugs). Thus neither user feedback nor multidisciplinary collaboration play a central role in the actual development process. As a result, functionalities and user interfaces can be planned in a way that disregards the user’s needs, and creativity processes that may enhance the innovative character of a product remain unrealized. Within the framework of this research project, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the (traditional) IT industry and the gaming software industry, we investigate how individual and organizational factors can facilitate or encourage collaborative creativity in IT development processes, in order to identify action parameters for the implementation of Design Thinking in IT development.

Project Team:
Christoph Meinel, Tilmann Lindberg,
Karin-Irene Eiermann

Watch the video on Tele-Task

in the development processes of the IT industry via Design Thinking

Traditionally IT development processes are technology-orientated and take place within the competency spheres of software and hardware engineers. The integration of the user perspective typically only takes place just before the actual development work (specification phase) and at the final development stages (elimination of software bugs). Thus neither user feedback nor multidisciplinary collaboration play a central role in the actual development process. As a result, functionalities and user interfaces can be planned in a way that disregards the user’s needs, and creativity processes that may enhance the innovative character of a product remain unrealized. Within the framework of this research project, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the (traditional) IT industry and the gaming software industry, we investigate how individual and organizational factors can facilitate or encourage collaborative creativity in IT development processes, in order to identify action parameters for the implementation of Design Thinking in IT development.

Project Team:
Christoph Meinel, Tilmann Lindberg,
Karin-Irene Eiermann

Watch the video on Tele-Task